Most gold is found in such small traces that assays have to be sent to a lab for the presence of any of the precious metal to be confirmed, so to see it in the cores is always a good sign.

Results for the first hole (HAD005) of the drill programme returned a combined 275 metre (m) intercept at 4.77 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.61% copper.

IN-DEPTH: Greatland’s stunning gold-copper intercept at Havieron

That included an upper zone of 118m at 3.08g/t gold and 0.84% copper from 459m and a lower zone of 157m at 6.04g/t gold and 0.44% copper from 660m.

Lab results for the four other holes won’t be available for a few weeks yet, but Greatland said the observation of mineralisation is considered material “because it demonstrates the presence of a significant mineralised system at Havieron”.

Work at the project, which sits in an area well-staked by the likes of Rio Tinto PLC (LON:RIO) and Newcrest Mining Limited (ASX:NCM), is expected to continue until mid-December, by which point the team will stand down before re-starting work in the New Year.

Big Boys are in town

“We are very pleased to see significant visible mineralisation in all holes of the current drilling campaign,” said chief executive Gervaise Heddle.

“We believe that these observations, when combined with recently reported assay results and the results from new geophysical modelling, provide further evidence to support our view that Havieron has the potential to represent a very large mineralised system.”

Heddle added: “We are also encouraged to have seen the greatly increased level of activity in the Paterson by major industry participants which has served to highlight the value of Greatland's strategic position in the region.”

The explorer has highlighted the details of a new geophysical model, including 3D gravity and magnetic data, which indicate there is potential for mineralisation at Havieron to extend from approximately 400m below the surface to depths in excess of 1,200.

It has outlined a large irregular shaped body, and, it defines a single, discrete, high amplitude elliptical shaped body that is steeply dipping (subvertical) toward the south-east.

READ: Greatland’s stunning gold-copper intercept at Havieron

"We are very excited by the results of the latest geophysical modelling which suggest that Havieron has the potential to represent a significantly larger mineralised system than we previously expected,” said Gervaise Heddle, Greatland chief executive.

“Our excellent recent drilling results only tested to approximately 800 metres below the surface and elevated gold and copper persisted to the end of several holes, suggesting that mineralisation continues at the depth below the current limit of drilling.”

Heddle added: "Havieron is a conspicuous 'bulls-eye' magnetic anomaly, as seen in airborne data sets.

“There are more than twenty magnetic anomalies similar to that observed at Havieron within Greatland's Paterson licences and, in light of the exceptional mineralisation at Havieron, these represent compelling regional exploration targets."

The initial 70% uptick to 1.72p was perhaps inevitably followed by a bout of profit taking, and the shares then fell away slightly to 1.63p.

But there could be more excitement to come, much more, as interest builds in Australia and punters start to wonder what it all means.

Intercepts of that quality don’t come along every day, and it’s no coincidence that Greatland’s results have got the industry talking and have received mainstream media attention in Australia over the past few days.

Much of the Australian commentary on the Havieron results is also dwelling on ongoing rumours that Rio Tinto has unearthed a major new copper discovery in a similar area of the Pilbara to the northwest of Greatland, something which has been a hot topic of conversation in West Perth for weeks.

It’s an area that’s already been well staked by companies, including Greatland, Rio Tinto (LON:RIO), Antipa (ASX:AZY), Newcrest (ASX:NCM) and Sipa amongst others. Newcrest is already mining at the Telfer gold mine to the west, and Greatland has in the past described the prospectivity of Havieron in terms of finding Telfer-style projects.

Meanwhile, Rio has built an exploration camp on its ground 150 kilometres north-northwest of Telfer and has been staking up more ground. It’s also locked in a deal with Antipa to secure a 75% stake in the Citadel project.

Now one of Australia’s most famous mining entrepreneurs, Andrew Forrest, is getting in on the act. His company, Fortescue Metals, recently pegged a big ground position in the area.

Not surprisingly, local speculation is abuzz that a new mining district is opening up within the already prolific Pilbara.

Into this heady mix now steps Greatland with a world-class intercept that could well be the first of many. What’s special about the Greatland result isn’t just the grade and width. It’s also that the hole ended in mineralisation.

That conceivably means that the same hole, if twinned but drilled deeper, would return even more mineralisation a second time around.

Such a hole is unlikely at this stage of the game though, as Greatland is instead now bent on drilling more holes into Havieron to see just what sort of intercepts come back from the wider area.

With the intercept at Havieron already banked, Greatland already has skin in the wider chess game that’s now developing around the district. Naysayers will point to the depth as a negative factor, but with Newcrest and Rio Tinto circling, that’s unlikely to be the deciding factor.

For major companies like that, depths of 400 metres-plus aren’t necessarily off-putting at all. Rather 275 metres of highly mineralised ore represents a real advertisement in the shop window, and it wouldn’t be surprising if before too long one major or another appeared on the Greatland share register in quite a significant way, as well as tying up a deal at the project level too.

The group said it also establishes new peak grades for the mineralised system, including peak gold of 211.30 grammes per tonne (g/t), previously 137.69g/t, and peak copper of 8.45%, previously 4.11%.

Gervaise Heddle, Greatland’s chief executive officer, commented: "We are thrilled by these truly spectacular results which further demonstrate the exceptional potential of Havieron. These stunning results represent a world-class intersection as measured by total mineralisation in one drill hole in excess of 1,500-metre grams gold equivalent.”

He added: “Elevated gold and copper results persisted to end of hole suggesting the mineralisation continues at a depth below the current limit of drilling, which is supported by the results from forward modelling of detailed geophysical data. The remarkable peak gold and copper grades of 211.3gt/t and 8.45% respectively are significantly higher than in the previous drilling. Importantly, we have seen significant widths of copper well in excess of 0.5%.”

Heddle concluded: "The results from HAD005 are just the first in our current campaign at Havieron and we look forward to updating shareholders on our continued progress."

It has been busy at all of its assets and raised £4.44mln (2017: £1.37mln) during the year to help fund the work.

Perhaps the most significant progress over the past year has been made at Paterson, particularly the Havieron and Black Hills licences within that project.

Back in the spring, Greatland carried out its first drilling campaign at Havieron which returned “excellent results”, including a 121 metre-long intersect averaging 2.93 grams per tonne of gold and 0.23% copper.

A second programme kicked off last month and in the very first hole there was visible gold mineralisation, adding to the firm’s belief that Havieron has the potential to be a “very large mineralised system”.

Black Hills, gold nuggets

Over at the nearby Black Hills licence which was acquired this time last year, Greatland found “multiple” gold nuggets at the surface during its first exploration programme over summer.

Additional rock chip samples were collected and returned grades of up to 81.7 g/t gold, helping to boost the strike to 800 metres.

Greatland was dealt a minor setback at its Ernest Giles project when mining giant Newmont, which has the first refusal on the project, opted not to take things any further.

Since then, the company has been busy with more exploration and drilling programmes which extended two previously identified large gold zones in the Meadows area and detected gold, silver and copper mineralization at the Wishbone area.

WATCH: World Gold Council reviews Q3 gold trends

On a broader note, Greatland has told investors it remains “confident” in the long-term fundamentals of the mining industry, while it is also “optimistic” regarding the prices of gold, copper and other metals.

For the 12 months ended June 30 2018, the explorer posted a loss of £1.84mln (2017: £1.37mln).

Greatland said high-quality induced polarisation (IP) data were collected and used to generate three-dimensional (3D) inversion models and that results have outlined a large, coherent conductive body over 1,000 metres (m) of the strike, spatially coincident with gold mineralisation identified at the surface.

The conductive body has dimensions of around 1,000m long, 200m wide and 150m thick, and is open to the south-east.

Depth to the top of the body ranges from 150m to 200m below the surface, a depth that is virtually untested by historic drilling in the Saddle Reefs area.

"We are very excited by the excellent results from the 3DIP survey at Black Hills, which has outlined a large, new and virtually untested gold target at the Saddle Reefs prospect. Saddle Reefs has the potential to host gold mineralisation from surface to significant depths, and these results reinforce our view that it represents a high priority exploration target for us,” said Gervaise Heddle, the chief executive officer of Greatland Gold.

The Black Hills licence is wholly-owned by Greatland is in the Paterson region of Western Australia – a region that has attracted the attention of major industry players.

“We look forward to a busy exploration season in the Paterson region next year, which will include Greatland's first drilling campaign at Black Hills," Heddle said.

Earlier this month, Greatland revealed the first drilling campaign at the Havieron target, which is 6km east of Scallywag, also returned “excellent results” including 121m at 2.93 grams per tonne gold and 0.23% copper from 497m.

“Scallywag represents a high priority target for further exploration given the large size of the target, its relative proximity to Havieron, and its potential to host the prospective basement sequence under relatively shallow cover at probable depths of around 50m,” said chief executive Gervaise Heddle.

"The Paterson region remains relatively underexplored and our licences host multiple large magnetic anomalies, similar in scale and structural setting to the Havieron target. We intend to continue our systematic programme of regional exploration over the course of the next 12-18 months."

In afternoon trading, Greatland shares were 0.5% lower at 1.12p.

-- Adds video link, share price --

]]>Tue, 23 Oct 2018 10:56:00 +0100https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/207657/greatland-gold-reports-positive-results-from-sampling-at-scallywag-target-207657.htmlhttps://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/rns/404/LSE20181023095017_13838891/
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 09:50:17 +0100https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/rns/404/LSE20181023095017_13838891/https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/207193/greatland-gold-appoints-former-rio-tinto-mining-veteran-as-a-non-executive-director-207193.html
Clive Latcham, a former copper group mining executive at Rio Tinto, has been appointed as a non-executive director to the board of Greatland Gold plc (LON:GGP).

The chemical engineer and mineral economist has more than thirty years' experience in senior roles in the mining sector and is currently a senior external advisor at the sustainability consultancy firm, Environmental Resource Management (ERM), where he is also an advisor to the chairman and chief executive officer.

Prior to his role at ERM, Latcham worked as an independent advisor to private equity and mining consultancy firms and spent nine years in senior roles with Rio Tinto.

At Rio, he was responsible for managing Rio Tinto's investments in the operating businesses of Escondida in Chile, Grasberg in Indonesia, and Palabora in South Africa and for the initial development of new projects and acquisitions, including La Granja in Peru and La Sampala in Indonesia. He served on the operating committees of both Escondida and Grasberg mines.

At Greatland, he will support the management team in ensuring that the company has covered all the key issues required to advance the Havieron project to the next stage of development, including identifying suitable people that can assist the current management team as well as advising the board during any potential negotiations with major mining companies.

#GGP Look like this was the reason he was in London talking with Clive Latcham. https://t.co/AJwWPUCsbR

— Goodshare (@Goodshare1) October 15, 2018

"We are very pleased to announce Clive Latcham's appointment as a non-executive director of Greatland Gold,” said Gervaise Heddle, the chief executive officer of Greatland.

“His extensive experience in the industry will be invaluable as we step up our efforts at Havieron, where early indications from our second drill programme are extremely encouraging. The board looks forward to working with him and leveraging his senior relationships across the industry to accelerate development across all areas of the business,” he added.

The shares rose to 1.11p from 1.045p on the day the appointment was announced.

The current drilling campaign at Havieron, which commenced on 17 September 2018, consists of up to ten core holes for a total of approximately 6,000 metres.

READ: Greatland expands its gold footprint at Ernest Giles

The first drill hole of this second campaign has been completed, and initial observations, in conjunction with earlier results, suggest that Havieron may represent a very large mineralised system.

Assay results from the most recent hole are expected in approximately six weeks.

"We are very pleased to see significant visible mineralisation in the first hole of this new drill campaign, which further reinforces our view that Havieron has the potential to be a very large mineralised system,” said chief executive Gervaise Heddle.

“Our key priority now is to further test the extent and orientation of the mineralised zone and we look forward to providing further updates as drilling progresses."

The Western Zone has been extended to a strike length of approximately 6.2km and remains open to the north, while the Eastern Zone now has an extended strike length of approximately 2.5km.

Twelve of the 25 reverse circulation holes drilled returned anomalous gold grading over 10 parts per billion in Archean basement, with the highest individual result of four metres grading 0.2 grams per tonne.

"We are pleased with the results received from our recent drilling campaign at Meadows,” said chief executive Gervaise Heddle.

“The extension of the known zones of gold mineralisation at Meadows represents another step forward in advancing this early stage exploration project. The company is in a very fortunate position of having six quality projects in its portfolio with a major drilling campaign ongoing at Havieron and results awaited from the 3D induced polarisation survey at Black Hills.”

The first campaign also established the presence of a zone of high-grade mineralisation, with peak grades of 137.69 grams gold and 4.11% copper, and demonstrated the potential for Havieron to represent a very large mineralised system.

The new drilling campaign consists of up to ten core holes to a depth of 600 metres each for a total of approximately 6,000 metres.

The drilling programme is designed to determine the extent and direction of the high-grade zone of mineralisation at Havieron.

"We are excited to be on the ground and pushing forward with our second major drilling campaign at Havieron following the excellent results from the first campaign which established a zone of high-grade gold mineralisation peaking at almost 4.5 ounces gold per tonne,” said chief executive Gervaise Heddle.

"The results from the first drill programme, combined with independent geophysical modelling, indicate that Havieron has the potential to represent a very large mineralised system."

In a related move, the company has also issued around A$250,000 worth of shares to DDH1 Drilling, which will carry out the drilling campaign.

Many of the chips also returned high silver values, ranging up to 106.1 g/t.

Greatland said the results appear to roughly quadruple the strike length of gold mineralisation identified at the surface from 200 metres to around 800 metres.

At the Rogers prospect, several samples returned more than 1 g/t gold, ranging up to 8.9 g/t.

"We are delighted by these results which significantly extend the strike length of surface gold mineralisation at the Saddle Reefs prospect and further highlight the potential for Black Hills to host a large, high-grade gold deposit. Given these exciting results, we intend to quickly move forward with our exploration efforts at Black Hills and we look forward to receiving the results from the recent 3DIP survey which will be used to assist with planning Greatland's first drill campaign at Black Hills,” said Gervaise Heddle, the chief executive officer of Greatland.

Following positive mobile metal ion (MMI) sampling results earlier this year, Greatland embarked on a reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign across the Ernest Giles project from June through August 2018 that focused on high priority gold targets at the Meadows, Wishbone and Empress areas, and a nickel sulphide target at the Carnegie area.

At Wishbone, two maiden drill holes were completed to test structural targets. The initial, deeper, hole failed to intersect basement despite being drilled to 498 metres (m) but the second hole intersected basement lithologies at 373m. Results from basement rocks reported up to 38 parts per billion (ppb) gold, 0.44 parts per million (ppm) silver and 0.15% copper.

On the Empress prospect, two holes were completed to test a surface MMI anomaly but, again, only one hole came up trumps.

The highest result at Empress was 4m at 45ppb from the surface in hole ERC032, which Greatland said largely explains the elevated surface MMI gold response; however, the source of the elevated gold at surface remains unexplained.

At Carnegie, one hole was completed to test a nickel target. The basement was intersected at 373m and the hole total depth was 408m. Hole ERC034 was the first drill hole by Greatland that has successfully intersected basement at Carnegie. A consistent nickel response was detected in the basement (to 0.02%) from 380m to 408m (end of hole) in ERC034.

Greatland is still awaiting results from its drilling at Meadows.

"We are very encouraged by the initial drill results from Wishbone and Carnegie, which reaffirm our exploration model for both areas and our view that, while very early stage, both targets are highly prospective,” said Gervaise Heddle, the chief executive officer of Greatland.

"The Wishbone area includes a number of high priority structural targets and it is noteworthy that we have intersected disseminated sulphides throughout the basement rocks in just our first drilling campaign in the area.

"We are also encouraged by the consistent nickel response in basement at Carnegie, a large nickel sulphide target with a geophysical signature similar to Independence Group's Nova nickel deposit. Importantly, this is the first and only hole that has intersected the target rocks in basement,” Heddle stressed.

"In regards to Empress, we intend to undertake further work to understand the source of the highly elevated gold response at surface in both RC drilling and MMI surface sampling," Heddle said.

Meanwhile, on the Havieron project in the Paterson region of Western Australia, DDH1 Drilling has been re-appointed to conduct the upcoming drill programme and has agreed to accept part payment (£142,045) of fees in the form of shares and warrants in Greatland.

The shares – 11.36mln of them (and 11.36mln warrants) will be issued on the same terms as the company's recent placing and subscription announced on 27 July 2018.

DDH1 has confirmed that drilling is on schedule to commence at Havieron in mid-September.

"We are delighted to be working with DDH1 again. They very successfully conducted our maiden drill campaign at Havieron earlier this year, which yielded excellent results,” Heddle said.

“DDH1 have become a great partner for us and we are pleased to see that they are backing this project not only with their skill-set but by taking equity in the company. This is a great endorsement for the Havieron project and our exploration efforts," he added.

Reflecting the share capital dilution that will arise from the issue of shares and warrants to DDH1, the Greatland share price fell 0.1p to 1.05p.

]]>Mon, 03 Sep 2018 10:01:00 +0100https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/204054/greatland-gold-encouraged-by-drilling-results-at-ernest-giles-204054.htmlhttps://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/rns/404/LSE20180903092009_13776224/
Mon, 03 Sep 2018 09:20:09 +0100https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/rns/404/LSE20180903092009_13776224/https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/203217/greatland-gold-identifies-large-gold-target-at-firetower-203217.html
Greatland Gold PLC (LON:GGP) took a significant step towards its goal of identifying a million ounces of gold at the Firetower project in Tasmania, after it revealed the existence of a large target generated from a 3D-induced polarisation survey.

The target is approximately 1,000 metres long, traverses east-west across the Firetower prospect, and is open to the east and up to depths of 400 metres.

WATCH: 'Breakthrough' for Greatland Gold with large target spotted at Firetower project

What’s more, the results illustrate that sub-surface gold mineralisation identified in drilling to date is spatially associated with the 3DIP chargeability anomaly;

Greatland is currently working on plans for a drill programme.

"We are very pleased by the excellent models generated by the 3DIP survey at Firetower which have identified an exciting new large gold target,” said chief executive Gervaise Heddle.

“We believe that these models represent a potential breakthrough for our exploration efforts at Firetower and will help us to unlock the true potential of this high-grade, near-surface gold deposit. Our intention is to advance the Firetower project towards its exploration target of one million ounces of gold by leveraging these excellent results and we are currently planning a new drill programme which we expect to commence in the first quarter of 2019."

The new programme will focus on the Scallywag target, which is located with the Havieron licence and consists of several magnetic anomalies, each of which has the potential to host gold and/ or copper mineralisation.

WATCH: Greatland Gold announces third stream of Paterson exploration

News of the third programme comes on the back of “excellent results” from maiden exploration campaigns at Black Hills and Havieron, and all three will run in parallel with one another.

The first phase of the new programme is expected to begin later this month.

“The Paterson region remains relatively underexplored and we believe that it is highly prospective for large mineralised systems,” said chief executive Gervaise Heddle.

“Our licences host multiple large magnetic anomalies, similar in scale and structure to Havieron, and, over the course of the next twelve months, we intend to pursue a systematic programme of regional exploration that will test a number of these additional regional targets.

He added: “Scallywag hosts coincident magnetic and gravity anomalies and is a good starting point for our exploration programme because of its relative proximity to Havieron and its potential to host the prospective basement sequence at depths of less than 100 metres.”

With the completion of the funding, Greatland will increase its cash balance to £6mln (over A$10mln).

"The funds raised will strengthen our capacity to accelerate exploration at both the Havieron and Black Hills targets following our excellent exploration results in recent months,” said Gervaise Heddle, Greatland chief executive.

"We are delighted to get new investment into the Company and I would like to thank our new and existing shareholders for their support.

Heddle added: “It has been a fruitful year to date for Greatland and the additional funds raised will allow us to devote more resources to the Paterson region whilst continuing with our planned work at our other projects.